I’m so tired of arguing with sex-pos feminists

It seems that everyone is stuck in a loop; the radfems are too used to dealing with misogynist porn weasels and the sex-pos feminist with crazy Christian types. It’s a case of all defences up and weapons loaded. It rivals WWI in tactical stupidity.

List of Annoying Things

Really long comment threads where no one is listening to anyone else.

Really long comments that involve irrelevant anecdotes.

That people think radfems are obsessed with sex. Just no. Y’all only argue with us about sex (and things you think are sex but we think are rape), thus creating the huge time sucks referenced above.

That people think radfems want to take away their orgasms. The thing is, I care way more about a class of women and girls who have been put aside for rape and exploitation than I care about anyone’s sexual pleasure.

“OMG!! Choice totally equals Feminism!” FFS, your choices affect other people. You know, all those strange two-legged things you see wandering around you everyday? Them.

Randoms co-opting the language of feminism and people arguing in bad faith when other people are actually trying to have a conversation.

C’mon people. We’re supposed to be the good guys group! Let’s stop firing at each other and open a com channel (or twenty).

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I’ll gladly agree with the “everyone needs to stop arguing” stance, but I have to disagree on your view of sex-positive feminists.
I don’t consider myself to be part of any “group” : not a radfem, not a sex-positive feminist, not a second-waver, third-waver, whatever. I’m just feminist.
Creating all these groups and terms seems to me to be exclusive. The problem is, I’ve felt far more excluded on radfem blogs than on sex-positive ones. I live on Shakesville anyway 🙂
But oh, I really, really hate people condescending at me.
As if I was too stupid to think.
As if I was too stupid to make my own choices.
Much like older men try to treat me. (the dudes my age, they’ve given up, my bite is far worse than my bark :D)
So there, I’m not saying amen to all the sex-po’s say (especially since I happen to not believe in God) but damn, does all this in-fighting depress me 😦

Oh, I remember those arguments — although when I participated in them, I was one of the “sex positive” feminists. As you say, they usually involved long stretches of women not listening to each other.

These days, I think that sex positive vs. radical feminist is a false dichotomy. I have NEVER met a radical feminist who didn’t want women to have positive sexual experiences if they wanted them — in fact, when I actually started listening to radical feminists, I simply realised that what I had perceived as sex-negativity was the desire to dismantle a paradigm that didn’t offer women much at all in the way of sexual enjoyment in their own right (although as you so rightly point out, that is not the be-all-and-end-all of radical feminism, or indeed any type of feminism).

That’s not to say that I’ve agreed with every radical feminist I’ve ever met (nor indeed every feminist I’ve ever met), and I know that I hold some beliefs with regard to erotica/porn that most radical feminists would disagree with, but I’ve realised that it’s far more important to listen and learn, and to recognise that even if disagreements do exist, the range of issues on which we do generally agree are much broader — that the mainstream porn industry is corrupt, it exploits and harms women, and that it promotes power hierarchies which are also reflected in seemingly innocuous texts that permeate everyday life, etc.

By: Beppie on February 13, 2009 at 11:35 am

Hmm… that is why I am a total control freak on my blog in regards to comments. I don’t have time to argue with so many miseducated women. And I like being able to talk in peace with women whom I consider my friends, without being shouted at by whoever happens to hate political lesbians/anti-racists/women’s liberationists etc. There seems to be an endless supply of haters lining up, and they all seem to have so much time on their hands.

“Haters with time on their hands,” I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but I was laughing with this statement.

We need feminist spaces where feminists can do advanced feminism. I don’t bother to talk to the porn promoters, or the sex poz types. I’m just not interested in sex as a discussion topic in feminism, I am interested in ending patriarchy, and working with other women who want this as well.

All else is just a waste of time with the haters who DO have all this time on their hands.

By: Avostarfish on March 24, 2009 at 12:31 pm

i agree with everything here. last year i spent so much time arguing over a listserv for one of my classes that i was neglecting my hygeine and eating. it was no use. like arguing with cult victims.